Presidents Obama’s New Role in the Fight Against Black Homophobia

Writing for The New Republic, John McWhorter explores the potential benefits of Obama’s stance on gay marriage for the African-American community, where “65 percent … reported thinking of homosexuality as wrong.” McWhorter argues that “Obama is now serving as a useful cultural model.” His new position comes with the burden of trying to correct a view that is “backwards” in the African American community; “throughout its history, black America has pleaded and fought … to overcome the primal tendencies of bigotry” only to “harbor a simple revulsion at the notion of homosexuality.”